At John Stark, forensics teacher Heather Brady creatively solved another hurdle teachers are facing in this new era of teaching during COVID-19. She had to figure out how to make her introduction class for her forensics students COVID safe.
“I always begin each new session of forensics having the students play the classic board game of Clue. It is a great exercise in deductive reasoning, players collect clues and eliminate suspects, rooms, and weapons as they play. You learn to solve the puzzle of the game similar to how forensic investigators may use deductive reasoning to eliminate suspects and determine means and motive,” said JSRHS Forensics teacher Heather Brady who quickly deduced that students couldn’t sit that close to each other and play the traditional game, so she made another plan.
“The students have always loved Clue and I didn’t want to give that up,” said Brady, who got the idea of making a giant board on a tarp so the kids could play and be socially distanced and it worked. Instead of small character pieces, color-coordinated soccer cones were used to represent Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, and the others. The students were only allowed to touch and move their own character. Each student had their own dice and the cards were dealt out and sanitized ahead of time so there were no shared items.
“It took me several days and a lot of duct tape but we were able to play the same game I’ve always used to introduce forensics to students. It was worth the extra effort and the bonus was during good weather the students could hone their deductive reasoning skills outside in the wonderful open, fresh air,” she concluded.